Abstract

GONZALEZ DE FAUVE, María Estela; LAS HERAS, Isabel J.  and  DE FORTEZA, Patricia. Simbología del poder en un linaje castellano: los descendientes de Pedro I excluidos de la línea sucesoria. Cuad. hist. Esp. [online]. 2003, vol.78, pp.47-65. ISSN 0325-1195.

During the late Middle Ages and the modern times in Spain, the nobility looked for symbolic means of investing the members of their families with internal and external forms of cohesion and identification. Symbolism was not a secondary aspect of the power of the nobility but one of its intrinsic elements since it was used to give legitimacy to their power as well as to affirm and express the pride of a lineage. In the case of the descendants of Pedro I of Castile separated from the line of succession, the symbolic universe through which the prestige of the lineage was recreated and reaffirmed, was based on the characteristics of its weapons, the importance given to the use of the last name, the reiteration of certain key names, the inscriptions placed in public and ecclesiastical buildings, the activities of patronage, and the construction of funerary centers for the burial of the family. These elements are common manifestations of the nobility's power throughout the late Middle Ages in Castile. In the particular case object of our study they underline specific aspects of the reality in which this branch of Castilian nobility operated in its attempt to recover its position in the society of those times.

Keywords : Symbolism; Power; Noble lineages; Castillas; Pedro I.